030603 Canada Puts Pressure on U.S. to Lift Beef Ban

Ottawa - Canada pressured the United States on Tuesday to reopen its borders to beef shipments, arguing there was no scientific justification to maintain the three-week-old ban on Canadian beef after nearly 2,000 tests for mad cow disease all turned out negative.

"We don't feel there is justification to keep the border closed," Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief told reporters, adding: "My guess is they will have their views on that."

Canadian officials briefed their U.S. counterparts on Tuesday on the conclusions of an investigation into a single case of mad cow disease found in northwestern Alberta.

The summary of a report by international experts reviewing the probe will also be sent to the United States in coming days, Vanclief said.

He added: "Can I guarantee you exactly what the results will be from the United States? No."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking a "methodical and aggressive" look at the probe and preliminary information from the international experts, but it is too soon to say when a decision will be made, USDA spokeswoman Alisa Harrison said.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said the USDA planned to ease the trade ban and allow imports of muscle cuts and live cattle younger than 30 months of age, although he added that the timing was not yet known.

On May 20, Canada announced that one cow, slaughtered in January, had tested positive for mad cow disease. To date, about 2,700 cattle have been removed from 42 farms and 1,954 tested for the disease. All have come up negative.

Canadian Wheat Board Minister Ralph Goodale said officials have shown the single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy remains an isolated case and the U.S. ban should be lifted.

"Based on that scientific information, we have to make the trade argument and we will be making it very energetically," said Goodale, a former agriculture minister.

But neither Vanclief nor Goodale could provide details of a federal aid package for the beef industry, which estimates it has been losing up to C$27.5 million ($20 million) a day because of beef bans by the United States, Japan and other key markets. No-interest loans are among the options under study.

Vanclief said he would meet with his provincial counterparts from the provinces on Friday to discuss what kind of aid could be given to an increasingly distressed sector.

Beef industry officials have said it was crucial they get word of an aid package this week, especially feed lot operators who have been forced to sell cattle to packing plants at fire-sale prices.

Premiers of western Canadian provinces, where the beef industry is centered, sent a C$400 million compensation plan on Monday to Prime Minister Jean Chretien and asked that unemployment insurance payments be accelerated.

"If it takes another three weeks, or four weeks, we have to provide a way that we can try and make sure we have an industry when we do get those borders opened," British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell told reporters in Kelowna, B.C.

The provinces' proposed aid package would make up for the roughly 30 percent slump in cattle prices since exports collapsed late last month.

Vanclief told CBC television that the government's proposed plan "could mean even more than that C$400 million to the industry out there today" but he gave no further details.

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